John Goss’ Tornado Ford leads a gaggle of sportscars on the drop between the Water Tower and The Viaduct, Longford, Saturday 2 March 1968…

I wrote this piece a while back and now seems a good time to post it given one of Tasmania’s finest, Gossy himself was awarded an Order of Australia for services to motor sports in last weekend-and-a-bit’s Queens Birthday Honours announcements. Off the back of that achievement Terry Sullivan started a The Nostalgia Forum thread which now contains some marvellous Goss photos, many from Lindsay Ross’ oldracephotos.com.au archive which have never seen the light of day before- check TNF out;

Back to Longford- it’s the Saturday race day, the Monday Labour Day holiday was Tasman Cup day, that year the feature race was won by Piers Courage’ McLaren M4A FVA F2 car in a notoriously wet, perilous day of motor-racing. Sadly it was the last in Longford’s relatively short but very sweet period as a road racing track. Click here for my article on the 1968 Longford Tasman;

The following shot is of Gossy losing Tornado on his turn-in to The Viaduct, I wonder if its the same lap! I think not, the track looks wet, which makes it the Monday. Amon’s Ferrari was pushed off the grid with a flat battery- he started the 10 lapper with 2 laps down and finished third- and did 178 mph in the wet conditions on The Flying Mile. Peter Macrow won in Tony Osborne’s Argo Chev from Glynn Scott’s Lotus 23 Ford.

During the dry Sports Car Scratch race on the Saturday Chris won from Ian Cook in Bob Jane’s Elfin 400 Repco V8 and Peter Macrow in the Argo Chev.

Amon, awfully comfortable in the P4/CanAm 350- in addition to his Ferrari F1 commitments he raced the cars in both the 1967 endurance races and some Can Am rounds, set an all-time Longford lap record of 2:16.2 undercutting Jim Clark’s Lotus 49 Ford DFW time of 2:13.0 earlier in the day. Mighty quick. Mind you, that summer Frank Matich beat Chris’ Ferrari in the Matich SR3 Repco in the other Australian Tasman round sportscar support events. But FM did not cross Bass Straight to do Longford- sad! Those battles on that circuit would really have been something to see!

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Yes Joe,
It was an odd choice but he was very much a Ford man- and claims a big difference in weight of the FoMoCo motor compared with a Holden-Red 6, so no doubt figured blazing a development path with the engine was worthwhile. Apparently the car still exists, it would be great to see it in historic racing one day.
Mark

Yes Bill,
I didn’t realise until relatively recently what a talented engineer/mechanic Gossy was. The Tornado under the skin may not have been the prettiest of things but it was certainly fast and achieved his primary aim of ‘getting a leg up’- he was certainly noticed by those who could spot talent.
Mark

According to the Longford report in Racing Car New, the Monday 10 lapper for Sports Cars started in drizzling rain with Cook’s Elfin Repco a non-starter and Amon’s Ferrari P4 wheeled off the grid with a flat battery. The Ferrari got underway two laps down.

Peter Macrow (Argo Chevrolet) won the race from Glyn Scott (Lotus 23) and Amon, with the latter achieving a flying eight speed of 178 m.p.h.! In the wet! Goss is mentioned in the report as pitting and rejoining one lap down.

Yes, Chris Amon won the 10 lap “Abbotts” Sports Car Scratch Race on the Saturday in the Ferrari P4 with Ian Cook second in the Elfin Repco V8 and Peter Macrow third in the Argo Chevrolet. Amon also set a new OUTRIGHT track record in that race with a 2:12.6, undercutting Jim Clark’s record of 2:13.0 with the Lotus 49, set earlier in the day during the 12 lap “Examiner” Scratch Race for Tasman cars. Not bad for a Sports Car, albeit with a couple of extra litres to play with.

Yes Rob, pretty amazing, I’ve been researching Longford all week. An article with a lot of pictorial content focussed on the track itself and it’s nuances- there are far more turns than the maps actually show. 122 mph average is amazing also given how narrow much of it was, and that CanAm 350 was a big bit of real estate!
Mark